Airplanes and the pilots who flew them are a big part of Valley lore. Amelia Earhart, the aviation pioneer who disappeared in 1937, made her home on Valley Spring Lane in Toluca Lake and her base at United Field, the original name of Burbank Airport.

Earhart and flyers such as Pancho Barnes, Waldo Waterman and the future tycoon Howard Hughes set aviation records flying in the Valley. Sometimes, crashes provided bigger news.

Possibly the first fatal crash occured in front of hundreds of witnesses at the formal dedication of the studios at Universal City on March 15, 1915. Universal threw a big party that included a trainload of celebrities from New York. The party ended abruptly when stunt pilot Frank Stite plunged into a ravine while trying to reenact a movie manuever.

During the filming of Hell's Angels, which marked Hughes' Hollywood debut, crashes in the Valley claimed two lives. Stunt flier Al Johnson hit power lines in Glendale and fell into the Los Angeles River bed.

The more spectacular crash occured during filming of a scene depicting the shooting down of a German bomber during World War I. Pilot Al Wilson put the large plane into a dive, but the fuselage fabric began to shred. Wilson parachuted to safety but Phil Jones, a crewman lying in the plane to release smoke for the cameras, was aboard when the plane slammed into an orchard at Terra Bella Street and Haddon Avenue in Pacoima.

Pacoima also was the scene of a ghastly mid-air crash that rained flaming debris on the boys athletic field of Pacoima Junior High. Three boys died in the January 31, 1957 tragedy.

The crash occured at 25,000 feet between an F-89 fighter jet and a new DC-7 airliner undergoing a final test flight. Six crew members perished, including the DC-7 pilot, Archie Twitchell, who had time to radio these final words: "Uncontrollable.. uncontrollable.. say good-bye to everybody." Seventy-four people on the ground were hurt.

The terror of that morning was depicted in La Bamba, since Ritchie Valens attended the school at the time and lost a friend. Outrage over the deaths led to construction of a hospital in Pacoima and a ban on military operations over the Valley

( More to come... }